1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of data processing systems and in particular to data processing systems that permit recipient-defined conditions to determine recipients of messages within the data processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data processing systems are well known in the prior art. Such systems may permit a plurality of computers or work stations to be simultaneously coupled, as by a network, to a central processor or, alternatively, permit multiple computers or work stations to be coupled together in a local area network. Such systems may permit the sharing of computer assets, resources or objects such as documents, data bases, files, programs, computational facilities, bulletin boards, or electronic mail facilities.
A data processing system may include an electronic mail system. In such a system, a message can be delivered to at least one explicitly identified recipient by supplying an electronic address. Electronic mail systems may permit a sender to send a message to more than one explicitly identified recipient by entering more than one electronic address or by selecting one or more pre-defined distribution lists.
However, electronic mail systems as described require the sender to explicitly identify all recipients of a message and therefore require the sender of the message to know who would want to receive the message. Electronic mail systems as described are inherently exclusionary. The distribution of messages in such systems is confined to those recipients designated by the originator of the message.
Many enterprises desire an electronic distribution system that is not exclusionary. Thus, a data processing system may include an electronic bulletin board that allows persons who are users of the system to seek information from a central repository. In a bulletin board system, the dissemination of a message from a sender to an undesignated user requires two separate steps: the sender must first send the message to the repository and then the interested user, who may not know that a message has been sent, must subsequently discover and retrieve the message by searching the repository.
Delay is inherent in a bulletin board system as described. The message is not disseminated to an undesignated user at the time that it is sent to the repository by the sender--the message must wait for the interested, but undesignated, user to discover it in the central repository, as through the execution of a search routine. A search routine may be directly initiated by the user, and some data processing systems allow a user to input a search strategy for subsequent, and optionally repetitive, execution at a specified later time or times.
A method and apparatus are desired in which a sender may send a message to an interested but undesignated user without delay and also in which an undesignated user may receive messages of interest concurrently with the sending of the message by the sender, even though the sender of the message has not explicitly identified that user as an addressee of the message and may not even know that the user is interested in receiving the message.